<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Fall by Sapphicsarah</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26593975">The Fall</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphicsarah/pseuds/Sapphicsarah'>Sapphicsarah</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: The Next Generation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Hurt/Comfort, basically just me writing about jean-luc yearning for beverly, its very self indulgent don't look at me</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:49:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,887</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26593975</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphicsarah/pseuds/Sapphicsarah</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is just another page in history, isn’t it?” he asked softly. He looked back at Guinan. “Could this be the end of our civilization? Turn the page.” </p><p>Guinan shook her head and smiled. Her voice was soft and comforting, and it felt to him like the engines of the ship, reaching out to comfort him. “This isn’t the end,” she murmured. </p><p> </p><p>Takes place during The Best of Both Worlds: Parts 1 and 2 and Family</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Beverly Crusher/Jean-Luc Picard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Fall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It seemed rather maudlin, to tour the ship the night before it would be destroyed. A slow, careful inventory of all that would be gone in a matter of hours. He supposed it was tradition, a rite of passage for all captains who would go down with the ship. But history, which so often felt like a balm on the present, felt hollow and distant now. Imagining all the dead crews and captains before him didn’t make his solitary march any easier. It just made him feel alone.</p><p>He made his way slowly deck by deck, nodding at the few crewman he passed in the corridors. Most people seemed to be sleeping, and the ship was rather quiet. The gentle hum of the warp core seemed to vibrate and lull him gently, as if reaching out one last time in farewell as he made his way through engineering. It too would be gone soon. Lost in space and floating aimlessly.</p><p>The Borg were waiting, somewhere out there in the dark.</p><p>They were coming, and The Enterprise was not prepared to meet them. It seemed hopeless, but waiting in his quarters for sleep that would not come had been torture. And so, he walked the empty decks of his ship, touring them for what felt like the last time. Deck by deck, up and up, until he came to deck ten.</p><p>
  <em>Eleven dead, and eight more unaccounted for. </em>
</p><p>They too had walked their last final steps to their stations. He shook his head and exited the turbo lift, making his way through the doors to Ten Forward.</p><p>The dust cloud of the nebula cast a hazy blue glow on the empty chairs.</p><p>All was still.</p><p>All was quiet.</p><p>“Trouble sleeping?”</p><p>Jean-Luc turned to glance at Guinan in the corner. Sitting in the stillness, as if she’d known he would come.</p><p>“It’s something of a tradition, Guinan,” he said with a small smile. “Captain touring the ship before a battle.”</p><p>“Before a hopeless battle, if I remember the tradition correctly.”</p><p>“Not necessarily,” he said. But it felt hopeless, didn’t it? And that was perhaps why he came here of all places, slowly but surely making his way to Guinan.</p><p>“Nelson toured the HMS Victory before Trafalgar,” he pointed out.</p><p>“Yes, but Nelson never returned from Trafalgar, did he?” she quipped.</p><p>“No, but the battle was won.”</p><p>She smiled and raised her eyebrows and they sat down at the bar together. He faced her and wondered what it must be like to meet the Borg again after so many centuries. They had destroyed her home world many lifetimes ago, yet here they were again, across time and space, as if haunting her.</p><p>“Do you expect this battle to be won?” she asked frankly.</p><p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p><p>“We may yet prevail,” he said instead. “That’s… a conceit.”</p><p>She hummed softly in response.</p><p>“I wonder if the Emperor Honorius watching the Visigoths coming over the seventh hill truly realized that the Roman Empire was about to fall.”</p><p>He looked out into the nebula. The blue light of the dust cloud seemed to move in a lazy dance, unmoved by their plight. They were just another ship passing through. The last ship to pass through.</p><p>“This is just another page in history, isn’t it?” he asked softly. He looked back at Guinan. “Could this be the end of our civilization?” <em>Our turn to fall.</em></p><p>“Turn the page.”</p><p>Guinan shook her head and smiled. Her voice was soft and comforting, and it felt to him like the engines of the ship, reaching out to comfort him. “This isn’t the end,” she murmured.</p><p>He said it to himself as he entered the turbo lift. And then again as he stepped onto the bridge. One more time, as the Borg followed them out of the nebula and transported aboard his ship. <em>This isn’t the end,</em> he thought, as a Borg placed a piece of machinery at the nape of his neck. He felt himself fall into the ether and vanish.</p><p>
  <em>This isn’t the end. </em>
</p><p>…</p><p>The Borg cube was cold.</p><p>He shivered as he followed the drone, winding through the carefully constructed corridors. They walked past regeneration chambers, past other drones performing mundane tasks, past drones that were simply standing still, as if waiting for instruction. They did not move or look at them as he passed, and he shivered again at their cold stillness. The silver machinery was cold too, meticulously designed and from what he could tell, rather flawless. It was a chilly beauty, that from an engineering standpoint was fascinating. But all he felt was cold.</p><p>They wound their way through the bowels of the ship, until they came to a great opening. He recognized it from the viewscreen on the bridge. The voices of the Borg greeted him.</p><p>“Captain Jean-Luc Picard you lead the strongest ship of the Federation Fleet,” the sea of voices said. “You speak for your people.”</p><p>“I have nothing to say to you,” he shouted out into the faceless void. “And I will resist you with my last ounce of strength.”</p><p>“Strength is irrelevant,” they said. “Resistance is futile.”</p><p>He frowned and tried not to show that he was trembling. He was so cold, and he realized with a start that he was afraid. The terror threatened to claw at him, as the voices of the Borg told him his civilization would fall.</p><p>“Your culture will adapt to service ours.”</p><p>“Impossible,” he declared, though he did not believe it. “My culture is based on freedom and self-determination.”</p><p>“Freedom is irrelevant,” the voices droned. “Self determination is irrelevant. You must comply.”</p><p>He looked out into the ship and looked for something, anything, but there was nothing looking back at him. And he supposed this was why the Borg frightened him so much. They were hollowed out, devoid of any humanity. Their individuality had been systematically stripped away and their spirit was gone. But this was not the worst of it. The true tragedy came after, when they were doomed to do the same to countless others, following a code put into their heads by their own murderers.</p><p>He could never live like this. Humanity could not live like this.</p><p>“We would rather die,” he said.</p><p><em>This isn’t the end,</em> he heard Guinan’s voice in his head. He tried to believe it, but the voices of the Borg became louder and louder, and eventually her voice was drowned out, and suddenly it was gone.</p><p>“Death is irrelevant,” came the cold reply, and it echoed and echoed, until he was lying on a table and felt himself die.</p><p>…</p><p>The voice of Locutus was the loudest. He could hear the others just on the periphery, but they were softer and far away. Locutus was close, in his head too, sharing their body. It had not always been this way, but it felt like an age since he had been an individual. Since before Locutus became him and he became Locutus. Time had slowed.</p><p>Jean-Luc’s voice was still there too, though it was weakened and feeble, cowering in the corner of their mind. They winced, as their skull was drilled into. The transformation was still happening, their DNA was still being rewritten. A plug was placed into the side of their face, and a red tracking beam sprang ahead of them, just adjacent to their right eye.</p><p>How long had it been like this? Forever and ever, and yet not even an hour. Not even a day on Earth.</p><p>Earth.</p><p>Sector 001.</p><p>The Terran System.</p><p>They thought about the blue planet that seemed so very precious to them. To the humans. The human Jean-Luc was afraid, but they were not. It felt crowded in their body, their two voices jostling together, but Locutus was stronger, and they walked behind the other drones in a single file.</p><p>A drone approached them and placed another piece of metal into the side of their face. The voice of Jean-Luc screamed but they did not move, and Locutus became stronger.</p><p>Their assimilation was not like the thousands that had happened before. It was the first time a designation had been a name and not simply a number. Locutus of Borg. The voice to speak to the humans. It was an archaic notion for an archaic society primitively based on authority. A necessary evil, as the human said. Thus, a little of the human of Jean-Luc Picard remained.</p><p>They both felt him, clawing his way through the dark. Locutus drowned him out and stood still as they became more and more Borg.</p><p><em>Resistance is futile</em>, Locutus reminded, as if speaking to a petulant child. <em>You will be assimilated.</em></p><p>Jean-Luc did not respond. It was so cold in the ship, but he could not even shiver. He couldn’t move. Locutus took off the Starfleet uniform carefully and methodically, mechanically. They were naked, and Jean-Luc felt himself fold it gently and put it into a drawer with his communicator. Then, they looked ahead, and he felt more and more of himself change. He knew that the very core of his being was fading. Changing. Falling more and more into darkness. They walked further down the corridor.</p><p><em>Resistance is futile</em>, Locutus said again. Another small metal plate was drilled into their skull.</p><p>A few of the distribution nodes were damaged, whispered the voices in their head. Someone was on the ship. Intruders. It was not a matter for them. Irrelevant.</p><p>They felt the cube drop out of warp.</p><p>Then, a voice out of time. From his life before. For a moment he could not remember, could not sort through the onslaught of thoughts and voices, the memories of a thousand lifetimes echoing in his head. The voice was strong, and it called to him across the cosmos, as if calling him home.</p><p>Locutus turned to look at the intruder.</p><p>Her hair was a startling flash of red in the sea of metallic silver. It had been her voice that had called to him. How could she be here? He had not seen her in decades, although perhaps it had only been a few hours. Time was irrelevant, or so Locutus said.</p><p>There were others with her, ghosts from a long dead past come to greet him at the end of the world. They were afraid and Jean-Luc reeled at the thought. A few drones stood between him and the intruders, yet he felt the look on her face like a knife into his heart. </p><p>For a moment he thought that if he could just reach her, touch her, perhaps she could save him. Kill him.</p><p>She was so lovely. They tried to remember the feeling of her hand on their elbow. The warm, assuring touch whenever she said goodbye. Her smile when she teased them, her laugh when they said something they had never intended to be funny but was amusing to her anyway. They had loved her most of their life, and Jean-Luc hoped with a start that she would never see him again.</p><p>He was Locutus and Locutus was him.</p><p>They both loved her.</p><p><em>Love is irrelevant,</em> the voice of Locutus whispered. It was the first thing Locutus ever said that Jean-Luc did not believe completely.</p><p>One of the specters approached them and reached out. A force field pushed him back, and the soldier in yellow fell to the ground.</p><p>Locutus paid him no mind, and looked at the woman in blue, who looked right back at them. She looked and looked until a shimmering light came and took the ghosts away.  </p><p>…</p><p><em>We are Borg,</em> Locutus said.</p><p><em>We are Borg</em>, Jean-Luc said back.</p><p>“I am Locutus of Borg,” they said to the faces on the screen. “Your life, as it has been, is over.”</p><p>She was there, at the edge of the screen, although this time she did not speak. She was always there, just at the edge of their mind. She remained long after the screen went black.</p><p>They marched to a table and lay down. More machinery, more monstrosities placed into their body. They changed and changed, until they were a stranger. A mere imitation of the Jean-Luc before. They held their right arm aloft, and a tool was placed over it. It was a sheathe that cinched tight on the forearm. The tools at the end of it whirled and clicked as everything slid into place. A long probe synched with a nodule at the base of the metal plating on the side of their head. The probe lit up and the light of their skin changed, fading until it was as cold and silvery as the rest of the cube.</p><p>They remembered the words of the humanoid Guinan, said to them in a different and far off lifetime, on a different and far off ship. <em>This isn’t the end.</em></p><p>But it had been the end. And it was the end.</p><p>They felt a tear slide down their cheek.</p><p>…</p><p><em>We are Borg</em>, Locutus said for the millionth time.</p><p><em>We are Borg</em>, Jean-Luc said back.</p><p>They arrived at Wolf 359.</p><p>He was the executioner, and his axe was at his own neck. He was the leader of the great horde come from the darkness to bring the end of all things. He was the Fall of the Federation.</p><p>They drew closer and closer to the ships, who fought valiantly.</p><p>They died quickly.</p><p>Efficiently.</p><p>They were assimilated.</p><p>Locutus could hear their voices join them, could hear their cries fade and change until they were Borg too. Jean-Luc could not bear it.</p><p>The ships were torn apart, leaking plasma, or disintegrated all together. They drifted and crashed into one another; a ruin of vessels scattered across the battlefield.</p><p>The pain was unbearable. The world was ending. He could not save them. He could not even save himself. He wanted to die.</p><p><em>Death is irrelevant</em>, he reminded himself.</p><p>Humanity would not survive the Borg. They would become Borg. He was all alone and the voices in his head howled and begged to be set free. They raged and screamed until the mechanical whirl silenced them, and their whole world flickered and went out. The Tolstoy. The Kyushu. The Melbourne. One by one they fell.</p><p>Locutus would not let him look away. He and Locutus were being torn apart, repeatedly. And yet they looked out into space as the world vanished and crumbled. They left Wolf 359 and made a course for Sector 001 but the Enterprise eventually caught up to them. The Human Riker spoke for the ship.</p><p>It was a flimsy attempt at deception. A most human endeavor.</p><p>“Picard implicitly trusted you,” Locutus said to Riker.</p><p>“Then trust me now,” Riker entreated from the battle bridge. “Meet to discuss your terms.”</p><p><em>Discussion is irrelevant</em>, Locutus droned, and Riker ended communications.</p><p>She had not been there this time.</p><p>Locutus shook his head at the intrusive thought.</p><p>It was the end. And he supposed at the end, one thought of the beginning. The first time he had seen her was across a crowded restaurant. He had been there with Jack, a few glasses of synthehol in, waiting for this new girlfriend of Jack’s to arrive so that Jean-Luc could meet her.</p><p>She had been radiant. Young and beautiful with red hair swept back in a loose plait. She had caught sight of them across the crowd and smiled as she made her way to them. She had kissed Jack briefly, a small peck, a familiar greeting. Then she had turned to look at Jean-Luc and had reached out a hand. He had taken it and felt his world alter at the feeling of her hand in his. Her palm had been warm and soothing, her wrist small and delicate. His life as he had known it was over.</p><p>Everything that came after that moment was tinted with the feeling of her skin, the sound of her voice, the sight of her fingers gracefully tucking her hair behind her ear. He had loved her instantly and had felt guilty every day since. There was nothing he could do.</p><p>Locutus shook his head again and turned away. The voice of Jean-Luc faded a bit, and so did his memories. Locutus turned towards the memories of strategies and defense and pushed the human into a corner of their brain until he was entirely elsewhere and out of the way.</p><p>Despite the few times Jean-Luc had felt strong enough to fight back, Locutus never lost control. They fought endless battles, tore at one another within their own mind, and Jean-Luc screamed and wept as he fell again and again. Locutus felt Jean-Luc searching for a weakness, for a way back to the helm. But Locutus was strong, and the voices of the Borg were too loud, and for years and years the human roamed his own mind.</p><p>Jean-Luc longed for death, for then he would be able to look away.</p><p><em>Death is irrelevant</em>, Locutus said.</p><p>Jean-Luc fell even further into the darkness. <em>Death is irrelevant</em>, he repeated as he gazed vacantly out into space.</p><p>Then, the ghosts from before came back, and this time they spirited him away.  </p><p>…</p><p>It was her voice that woke them.</p><p>“Jean-Luc, it’s Beverly,” she murmured softly into their ear. “Can you hear me?”</p><p>They opened their eyes.</p><p>“Beverly. Crusher. Doctor,” Locutus identified.</p><p>Jean-Luc screamed into the darkness. He clawed at the walls and tore at the sinew of his mind. He raged and reeled and begged Locutus to let him speak. Let him say goodbye.</p><p>“I am on the Enterprise,” Locutus observed.</p><p>Another voice answered him. Not hers. Locutus sat up on the biobed.</p><p>“A futile maneuver,” Locutus said. “Incorrect strategy, Number One. To risk your crew and ship to retrieve only one man.”</p><p><em>Let me die</em>, Jean-Luc begged.</p><p>“Picard never would have approved,” Locutus continued. “You underestimate us if you believe this abduction is any concern.”</p><p>Locutus glanced at her and for no reason in particular, he suddenly sought to comfort her. “There is no need for apprehension,” Locutus said. But she startled as he raised an arm. Locutus looked away, unable to bear the sight of her fear. Locutus remembered the feeling of her hand on his head as he woke. He remembered everything.</p><p>“I intend no harm,” he said to the bulkhead in front of him. “No harm,” he echoed, as if surprised by his own sentiment.</p><p>Jean-Luc quieted at the promise. Their mind quieted at the momentary cease-fire. Locutus would not harm her.</p><p>“I will continue aboard this ship, to speak for the Borg while they continue, without further diversion, to Sector 001 where they will force your unconditional surrender.”</p><p>The world would still end. Earth would still burn. But he would not harm her.</p><p>Later, they were on the bridge, and Locutus was wandering around spelling out the doom of various crewman. “Worf. Klingon species. A warrior race. You too, will be assimilated,” he promised.</p><p>“The Klingon Empire will never yield,” Worf declared.</p><p>Locutus thought of the Romans and their hills, and the burning of planets yet to fall. “Why do you resist?” he asked the Klingon.</p><p><em>Why do you resist</em>, he asked Jean-Luc. <em>If assimilated, she would be a part of you, a part of us. </em></p><p><em>She would rather die, </em>Jean-Luc spat in disgust.</p><p>“A narrow vision,” Locutus replied. <em>If assimilated she would never die, never leave us. Her voice would always be one with ours.</em> <em>She would become one with the Borg.</em></p><p>“You will all become one with the Borg,” Locutus said to Riker, still unable to look at her. He turned to Data, eager for a distraction. “The android. Data, primitive artificial organism. You will be obsolete in the new order-“ </p><p>Before he could react, she stepped forward and put a hypospray up to his neck. The soft hiss was familiar, and the pain was sharp and brief. He slept.</p><p>…</p><p>Locutus slept, but he was still connected to the Borg hive mind. He could feel it as the cube moved closer and closer to Earth. He could feel all the voices raised in unison as they worked. He slept, but he and Jean-Luc were in the same mind, and they looked at each other.</p><p>They did not speak. Locutus knew that the human was growing weaker, and in turn so was he. He turned Jean-Luc’s memories over and over in his mind. Looking at them from every angle, taking inventory of his childhood, his years at the academy, his first command, his first failure, his triumphs, every moment across his time in the universe. All the dirt roads he had walked in France, the lazy days spent by the river, the strangers he had brushed past in café’s and starship corridors. The houses he had visited, the sunrises he had seen. The far-flung planets and stars he had gazed up at as a child. His love for adventure and his love for the crew. His love for Beverly.</p><p>The danger of sharing a mind meant that all those memories were his memories too. The mind was a doorway, and Jean-Luc was a prisoner behind it. They were alone in their misery, shut in and warring over the same insignificant body.</p><p>The mind was a doorway, and so it should not have surprised Locutus when another could step through.</p><p>It was Data who opened the door and set the prisoner free. The mind of Jean-Luc opened, and the door was flung from its hinges. Locutus felt Jean-Luc reach up and grasp the android’s hand.</p><p>She was there, at the edge of their mind. At the edge of their vision. She was holding a tricorder and speaking to the android. Her voice sounded muffled and far away, like he was underwater. He held on, and tried to listen, tried to understand. The Borg were coming.</p><p>“Sleep,” Jean-Luc said.</p><p>Locutus grew weaker.</p><p>“Sleep,” Jean-Luc repeated.</p><p>“He’s exhausted,” she said. He could not turn to look at her, could not bear the thought of all that he had done. The ruined ships burning, the bodies floating in space. He had not been able to stop them from taking his mind and thousands had died. He would rather die than live this way.</p><p>He hated what he had become, and Locutus hated that one life meant more to the human Picard than all the rest of the universe put together.</p><p><em>Love is irrelevant,</em> Locutus said as he grew weaker and weaker. But this time, not even Locutus believed it.</p><p>“Sleep, Data.” Jean Luc said.</p><p><em>To die, to sleep</em>, he said to Locutus.</p><p><em>No more. And by a sleep, to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to</em>, said Locutus.</p><p><em>Tis a consummation</em><em> devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep,</em> Jean-Luc said sadly.</p><p>To sleep, perchance to dream.</p><p>Aye, there's the rub.</p><p>The cube exploded, set off by a self-destruct caused by a system-wide malfunction. Locutus left him, and for the first time in an age, Jean-Luc was alone.</p><p>…</p><p>“What do you remember?” Riker asked.</p><p>“Everything.”</p><p>…</p><p>The DNA around the microcircuit fiber implants was returning to normal, but it took a few days for all the Borg hardware to be removed from him. It was slow work. Her hands were gentle as they slowly took him apart and put him back together again. Every day for nearly a week he had to sit in sickbay for hours at a time as she stood near him- a terrible intimacy that he craved more than a quiet mind.</p><p>It had not been the first time he had shared his mind. Although the first time he had done it willingly, had welcomed the heavy burden of Sarek’s emotions as an honor. He had borne it as best he could, although it had nearly destroyed him. He had felt ancient, dried up and displaced in time at the memories of Sarek’s friends growing old and dying again and again. His wives too, all of them human, withering away in the blink of an eye while he stayed the same. The love he had shared with them lost to logic and the culture of his people- Sarek’s people. Then, the slow insidious march of madness creeping in until all was lost, and he was nothing but an empty husk.</p><p>When he had needed her most, she had been there, just out of sight and half in shadow.</p><p>“It will pass,” she had promised. “All of it.”   </p><p>And it had. The weakness of his emotions had disgusted him and Sarek. They had both been revolted by his loss of control, by the regret of words left unsaid, and by the tear created from the sound of a violin. Emotions had been his undoing then, yet they were his salvation now. He felt himself becoming more human by the minute. He held his breath as Beverly slowly worked at the last few plates in his head.</p><p>They would be done by tomorrow. No more Beverly holding his arm, touching the side of his neck, or absently cradling his cheek as she worked. She always was such a tactile person. Reaching out, half in professional capacity and half in comfort. As if trying to ground each patient she helped, soothing with the casual intimacy of physical contact. Such things had never come easily to him. He was extraordinarily talented at creating distance, physically and emotionally.</p><p>Sarek’s voice had been different from Locutus, wilder and more broken. Jean-Luc closed his eyes as Beverly worked. He listened to the gentle beeping of the medical instrument stripping the last of the Borg away. A few crewmen were about, but there was only one other patient at the far end of sickbay, and he was sleeping soundly. The thrum of the ship held them gently and all was rather hushed as he listened to the sound of Beverly breathing in and out.</p><p>In the stillness he could almost hear Sarek’s tortured voice again, calling out to Amanda, to Perrin, to Spock. <em>I wanted to give you so much more.</em> <em>I wanted to show you such tenderness.</em></p><p>Beverly began to hum gently as she worked, a soft lilting melody that he couldn’t quite place.</p><p>He smiled at the sound and opened his eyes. She was so close, but the space he’d created between them was as vast as an entire universe.  </p><p>“Almost done,” she smiled back, leaning in a little closer. He could feel her breath on the side of his neck, and he had to work hard to suppress his shiver.  </p><p> …</p><p>“So, where have you decided to go?”</p><p>“Hmm, what?” he asked distractedly. He glanced up from his packing to look at Deanna’s reflection in the mirror. He’d been more distracted of late, losing his place in conversations with senior officers, often getting lost in his own thoughts when left alone, and found himself wandering through silvery corridors in his mind. “Oh… uh, France,” he replied. “Labarre, my home village.”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“Yes,” he nodded. “It’s the first time in almost twenty years.”</p><p>“Interesting,” she murmured.</p><p>He rolled his eyes. They’d been spending a great deal of time together since the Borg. Mandatory counseling sessions, long debriefs going over and over his logs, revisiting his nightmares, rehashing his splintered memories- all in the effort to find himself again. Or so Deanna told him.</p><p>“And what better place to find oneself than on the streets of one’s home village?” he argued.</p><p>“Interesting,” she repeated with a kind smile.</p><p>He rolled his eyes again.</p><p>…</p><p>The house was like stepping into the past, the winding dirt road tucking away into a hazy golden vision of childhood. Green hills rolled away in the same gentle slope he remembered tracing with an outstretched hand, the trees were taller but still familiar, and Robert was as stubborn as Jean-Luc remembered.</p><p>Robert would stay on this small patch of land until the day he died. There was a peace in that kind of certainty that Jean-Luc had never longed for, but now understood in some distant way. His life was filled with starcharts and battles, far flung places that he’d never even dreamed of as a child. It was a life filled to the brim with uncertainty.</p><p>The vineyard and the hills were as familiar as the old arguments he and Robert immediately began as soon as they spent any time together in the same room. Jean-Luc supposed he too was as stubborn as Robert remembered. Stubbornness was unmoved by the passage of time, the way the house like a mausoleum stood still against the tide of the centuries passing.</p><p>The only thing that had changed about home was Marie and Rene.</p><p>Marie was warm and welcoming, and reminded Jean-Luc entirely too much of Beverly. They both had bright red hair and looked alarmingly lovely in blue. Marie was older though, perhaps by ten years or more. She had a set of charming wrinkles at the side of her eyes from too many smiles, and her hands were cracked and dry from manual labor in the fields and cooking in the home. She smelled of lavender and flour and was effortlessly charming. Jean-Luc felt infinitely grateful for her presence.</p><p>A few days after his arrival he noticed that she had a few flecks of grey at her temples, and he found himself wondering what Beverly would look like with her hair turned silver. His heart ached at the thought, and he tried not to be homesick for a woman he had no right to miss. It would be so easy to fall into that trap again, the familiar path of yearning for the unattainable. It was safe, it was certain, for it could never be.</p><p>Robert stalked him through the vines, taunting him as they went farther out into the fields.</p><p>“The great Captain Picard of Starfleet falls to Earth, ready to plunge into the water with Louis.”</p><p>They pressed into wounds that had been left to fester for decades, tearing into each other with words and fists. Rolling into the mud, Robert pushed him to the ground and Jean-Luc fell hard. He laughed from his place on the Earth and looked up at the glittering sun. For a moment he felt young again, almost human.</p><p>Robert laughed with him. “You have been terribly hard on yourself,” he said kindly.</p><p>It was the kindness that broke the wall, the pebble that crumbled the mountain.</p><p>“You don’t know Robert,” he laughed through gritted, muddy teeth. “You don’t know. They took everything I was,” he cried, as his laughter gave way to something more dangerous. “They used me to kill and destroy and I couldn’t stop them.” The great yawning sorrow, the terror at the pit of his stomach threatened to overwhelm him completely. He couldn’t even feel the warmth of the sun on his face, nor the mud in his fingers.</p><p>Robert was still there, but for a moment Jean-Luc couldn’t see him. He could only see the silver corridors lined with silver bodies and could only hear the voice of Locutus coming out of his own lips.  </p><p>“I should have been able to stop them,” he wept. “I should… I should…-“</p><p>He was so very weary. He heard Sarek again, as if the Vulcan was reaching out across time. The anguish of the man, the despair pouring out of him- all those feelings. Beverly holding him together as he fell apart in front of her.</p><p>“So, my brother is a human being after all,” Robert quipped. Jean-Luc looked at him and was glad for the mud covering his tear-streaked face. “This is going to be with you a long time, Jean-Luc. A long time.”</p><p>The sun moved a little lower in the sky. The late afternoon light was golden and shimmering, and it felt warm on his face and his shoulders. The green vines seemed to shine with the dying of the day, and everything was as it had always been, as if frozen in time.</p><p>“You have to learn to live with it,” Robert said. “You have a simple choice now- live with it below the sea with Louis, or above the clouds with the Enterprise.”</p><p>Jean-Luc breathed in quickly as the last of the sun caught in his eyes. The light flickered briefly, blinding him momentarily in a golden flash, and then it dipped below the Earth and was gone.</p><p>He slowly stood up, reaching out to Robert to help him stand too. They stood together, shoulder to shoulder looking out at the fields of their forefathers, and at the far-off horizon. Up in the sky, high above the clouds, Jean-Luc thought he could just make out the faint silhouette of a starship in orbit.</p><p>…</p><p>Robert gave him a bottle of the ’47 as a parting gift. He’d been told not to drink it alone, so he shared it with her in his quarters. He didn’t say much, which seemed to suit her just fine. She chattered away pleasantly, and he sipped his wine and watched the stars go past behind her. Her face was a little flushed from the drink. Neither of them was used to the real thing after years of synthehol.</p><p>He thought about the Roman Emperor one last time, the final ruler of the great civilization watching his kingdom burn. Jean-Luc supposed that he had fallen a long time ago too. The fall had happened so gradually that he hadn’t noticed he was in love with her until it was too late- his heart thoroughly and completely conquered.</p><p>She was telling him a story about Deanna, something amusing had happened while they were down on Earth, but he hadn’t been listening and she noticed. She smiled, not at all offended and simply took another sip of wine and raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Where did you go, Jean-Luc?” she asked.</p><p>He tilted his head and looked down at his hand cradling the dark red wine. When he looked back up she was watching him, a wariness that had not been there before Locutus.</p><p>“Just lost in thought,” he apologized with a polite smile that she didn’t seem to believe for a moment. “But I’ve come back to you now,” he reassured firmly, letting his smile grow a little.</p><p>“You always do,” she said softly after a moment.</p><p>“Always,” he promised, though they both knew it was a promise he couldn’t possibly keep.</p><p>She hummed in response and moved to sit a little closer to him. Their elbows brushed and she leaned back and closed her eyes. She began to hum that song again and he watched her in the starlight. He thought about Robert, far away now and back on Earth. He thought about the ships they’d lost, and all the many worlds that had burned and been rebuilt. He thought about Sarek and Locutus and he thought about all the things he could have done.  </p><p>But then he remembered the infinitely human hopefulness that had been in his chest when he had told Guinan that they might yet prevail. He remembered her promise that it was not the end.</p><p>And then all he thought about was the taste of wine from his home on his lips, and the feeling of Beverly sitting quietly beside him, humming softly in the night. He smiled.</p><p>
  <em>This isn’t the end. </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>